Running Doc: Why am I so tired after Thanksgiving?

By DR. LEWIS MAHARAM

Nov 26, 2018 | 9:00 AM

Dear Running Doc:

Doc, I have so much to be thankful for and love the Thanksgiving Holiday. I am 46 and run 58 miles per week. Every Thanksgiving I plan to run but am always tired for a day or two. Same this year. I heard it is the tryptophan in the Turkey. Is that true? Should I eliminate the turkey?

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Mitchell C. Staten Island, NY.

Mitchell, thanks for the timely question. Tryptophan has been blamed for this phenomenon so its about time we cleared this up!

Tryptophan is an “essential” amino acid meaning that the body needs this substance to make certain proteins and does not make it: it must be consumed in the diet. Plenty of foods have tryptophan: turkey and poultry, chocolate, oats, bananas, mangoes, dried dates, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, red meat, eggs, fish, poultry, sesame, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and peanuts.

Many people have found tryptophan supplements to be a safe and reasonably effective sleep aid, probably due to its ability to increase brainlevels of serotonin (a calming neurotransmitter when present in moderate levels) and/or melatonin (a sleep-inducing hormone secreted by thepineal gland in response to darkness or low light levels).

Thanksgiving turkey. (John Moore / Getty Images)

Many believe that heavy consumption of turkey meat results in the sleepiness which has been attributed to high levels of tryptophan contained in the turkey. While we know turkey does contain high levels of tryptophan, the amount is comparable to that contained in most other meats.The after dinner Thanksgiving sleepiness may in fact have more to do with what is consumed along with the turkey, in particular carbohydratesand alcohol, rather than the turkey itself. This was demonstrated humorously on the sitcom "Seinfeld" when, I am sure you will remember, they drugged a woman using turkey and alcohol in order to play with her toy collection.

The science behind this clear: ingestion of a meal rich in carbohydrates triggers release of insulin. Insulin then stimulates the uptake of large neutral branched-chain amino acids (LNAA), but not tryptophan, into muscle, increasing the ratio of tryptophan to LNAA in the blood stream. The increased ratio of tryptophan to LNAA in the blood reduces competition at the LNAA transporter resulting in the uptake of tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier into the central nervous system (CNS). Once inside the CNS, tryptophan is converted into serotonin. The resultant serotonin is further metabolized into melatonin by the pineal gland. Therefore the research suggests that "Thanksgiving-induced drowsiness" may in fact be the result of a large meal rich in carbohydrates which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.

Therefore, if you want to be less sleepy, cut down on the amount of carbohydrate, not the turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the ride.

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Lewis G. Maharam, MD, FACSM is one of the world’s most extensively credentialed and well-known sports health experts. Better known as Running Doc™, Maharam is author of Running Doc’s Guide to Healthy Running and past medical director of the NYC Marathon and Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon series. He is also past president of the New York Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine. Learn more at runningdoc.com.